TITLE: Updates, Courtesy of My Readers
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: September 26, 2007  6:42 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
I love to hear from readers who have enjoyed an article.
Often, folks have links or passages to share from their
own study of the same issue.  Sometimes, I feel a need
to share those links with everyone.  Here are three, in
blog-like reverse chronological order:

<EM>On
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-09.html#e2007-09-24T16_47_17.htm">
   Devil's Advocate for Types</A></EM>

<A HREF="http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~wozniak/">
   Geoff Wozniak</A>
pointed me in the direction of
<A HREF="http://bracha.org/">
   Gilad Bracha</A>'s
work on
<A HREF="http://pico.vub.ac.be/~wdmeuter/RDL04/papers/Bracha.pdf">
   pluggable type systems</A>.
I had heard of this idea but not read much about it.
Bracha argues that a type system should be a wrapper
around the dynamically typed core of a program.  This
makes it possible to expose different views of a
program to different readers, based on their needs and
preferences.  More thinking to do...

<EM>On Robert Lucky and
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-09.html#e2007-09-05T19_48_14.htm">
   Math Blues</A></EM>

<A HREF="http://www.cs.utk.edu/~cjohnson/">
   Chris Johnson</A>,
a former student of mine, is also a fan of Bob Lucky's.
As a graduate student in CS at Tennessee, though, he
qualifies for a relatively inexpensive IEEE student
membership and so can get his fix of Lucky each month
in <EM>Spectrum</EM>.  Chris took pity on his old prof and
sent me a link to
<A HREF="http://www.boblucky.com/spectrum.htm">
   Lucky's Reflections</A>
on-line.  Thank you, thank you!  More reading to do...

<EM>On
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-08.html#e2007-08-14T19_54_24.htm">
   Would I Lie to You?</A></EM>

Seth Godin's thesis is that all good marketers "lie" because
they tell a story tailored to their audience -- not "the
truth, the whole truth, and "nothing but the truth".
I applied his thesis to CS professors and found it fitting.

As old OOSPLA friend and colleague
<A HREF="http://ambermancto.blogspot.com/">
Michael Berman</A>
reminds us, this is not a new idea:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Another noteworthy characteristic of this manual is that it  
doesn't always tell the truth....  The author feels that this
technique of deliberate lying will actually make it easier
for you to learn the ideas.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

That passage was written by Donald Knuth in the preface to
<A HREF="http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/abcde.html">
   The TEXbook</A>,
pages vi-vii.  Pretty good company to be in, I'd say, even
if he is an admitted liar.

Keep those suggestions coming, folks!
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